


Waking to light up

by dotfic



Category: Fringe
Genre: Episode Related, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-07
Updated: 2011-09-07
Packaged: 2017-10-23 12:49:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/250476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things are different now, and Peter realizes he's been looking at the wrong evidence for proof of what he needed to see. Set after 6B.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waking to light up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mona (monanotlisa)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/monanotlisa/gifts).



> Written for monanotlisa for help_japan. Title by Bei Dao. Thank you to musesfool for the beta.

Peter decided he'd been incredibly stupid.

Sure, it was easy enough to see things with hindsight, but he felt as if he'd been playing a C chord over and over when what the piece really needed was a shift to A. He wasn't even only thinking about how he'd missed that Olivia wasn't, strictly speaking, herself – although that was never not going to make him want to wince, and he knew it was even worse for Olivia. No, this was more about looking at the wrong sources for proof of something he needed to see, staring at a seashell when he should've been watching the sine patterns of the waves.

Olivia -- _his_ Olivia – wasn't quicker to smile; she carried an undercurrent of sadness. There were some damages nothing could fix (and yeah, good going, he'd been one of them). But Peter knew the difference between Oliva's armor and Olivia being truly contented and it wasn't a quick smile that undid him and made his chest go a little tight. It was Olivia's smile, period. It was the way her fingers twined tightly with his, the lack of hesitation she had in letting him see her vulnerable now. It was that he could make her laugh.

* * *

Lunatics with genius IQ's and the ability to build machines: may the mocking, unfeeling cruel universe give him patience.

This particular machine, hooked up in the hidden sublevel of a large tech company, could bring objects in and out of phase with reality. Walter'd practically jumped up and down, he'd been so excited when they first learned about its existence. It didn't deposit things into a different world, only shifted the atoms far enough that they were no longer anywhere for a period of time.

An in-between place, Astrid had called it.

In the basement at Scofield Industries, Olivia drew her gun. Scofield was in the corridors, somewhere, trying to escape the FBI.

"Head him off the other way," Olivia told Peter, before she ran off down one of the long, shiny-clean corridors.

Peter did what she said. He might be the go-to guy on how the brain of a scientist like Scofield's might work, but Peter was more than happy to follow Olivia's lead. The guy didn't personally seem all that dangerous – average height and weight, not terribly athletic, freckled with light sandy hair and a habit of talking too fast when he got enthusiastic about a scientific concept. Peter was pretty sure he could talk to him, and if he couldn't reason with him, he could take him. But his machine was dangerous, and either way, a gun wouldn't help even if Peter liked carrying one, which he didn't.

The whole thing was a little surreal, the fluorescent lights still flickering because of that crazy power surge, and a mad scientist who'd actually confessed to them that he wanted world domination (no, really, his exact words).

Actual world domination -- what the hell, everyone wanted something, right?

Peter raced around a corner and spotted Olivia at the far end of the next corridor, framed against the glass of a doorway. The lights flickered again and went out, leaving them in darkness.

"Peter?" Olivia said, her voice calm.

"Right here," he answered.

When the lights went on again, Olivia jogged towards him, gun held down in both hands.

"You see him?" she asked, a little out of breath.

"No." Peter walked quickly to meet her. "Maybe if we—"

A hum and a click sounded from somewhere nearby, and Peter noticed the wires strung along near the ceiling and the objects that at first glance looked like security cameras, that he'd assumed were security cameras, but weren't.

"Olivia, stop, it's—"

A rectangle of blackness popped into the air. He saw Olivia's steps falter, and the soles of her shoes slid on the linoleum as she tried to stop her own momentum before the rectangle blocked her from view, winked out, and Olivia was gone.

Peter jerked to a stop and cursed, his heart jackhammering in his chest. That hadn't just – she hadn't just – no. No _way_.

He snapped his attention back up to all the wires and the small devices – metal boxes with some sort of lens attached. If he could crack one open he could figure out how to reverse it, or maybe he could find the main power junction, disable the entire system, since he had no way to get back into the control room. Or he could keep chasing Scofield through his own facility, tie him to a chair, and force the bastard to tell him how to shut the system off and how to bring Olivia back into phase with reality.

It was getting hard to think, his vision going a little fuzzy at the edges. Yeah, that would help Olivia if he _passed out_ like a weenie. He blinked, and decided to try hacking one of the boxes first – that was right in front of him, something he could hold in his hands, do right now.

A snapping sound made him start and the sharp scent of burnt wiring tickled his nose. The dark rectangle of nothing flickered into view and Olivia stumbled into him.

"Crap, what was that?" she gasped.

Peter cradled her head with his hands, holding her up, her skin warm, soft slide of her hair beneath his fingers, her body solid and tense with coiled muscle. She seemed okay, pupils blown wide with agitation and the dim lighting.

"You all right?"

"I…" She paused, giving it serious thought. "I think so. I don't even know what that was. You – everything – vanished for a few moments there." She laughed with a shake fraying the edges. "I'm fine now." She tucked her forehead down onto his shoulder and her arms went tight around him.

When Peter hugged her back, she put her full weight against him without hesitation. There'd been a few times before when he'd offered comfort like that and she'd almost lean for a moment before always pulling back.

* * *

They woke up stupidly early considering it was Sunday, rain lightly tapping over and over on the windows in Peter's room, with the chill the kind that found its way into the floorboards, the touch of any furniture on an outer wall or near a window. So far, Broyles hadn't called either one of them yet.

Olivia pulled the blanket up over their heads, warm weight of her body pressing down on Peter's. The wet slid of her tongue into his mouth, his hands sliding up under her thin t-shirt, over her skin, hot in contrast to the coolness of the old house, and it was easy to put aside why they'd woken up stupidly early. Olivia had been whimpering in her sleep, loud enough to wake Peter.

He'd nudged her awake, making it seem like an accident, as if his elbow had slipped and found her ribs. Peter had watched her open her eyes, the tension draining from the lines of her face, and pretended nothing had happened. Something had, though, because she'd wriggled closer and leaned her head on his shoulder as if she might've needed the contact, rather than only wanting it.

Olivia grinned against his mouth, but that turned into a gasp as his hand slipped beneath the waistband of her panties, fingers stroking her.

It took a while before either of them thought of breakfast, and it was the scent of blueberry muffins that really put the idea in their heads. Walter must've baked.

"Be right back," Peter said. He slid out from the warmth under the blanket.

Olivia curled on her side, watching as he pulled on his sweatpants and the tiny smile she gave him made him flush. He went downstairs, grabbed some muffins, two glasses of orange juice, and napkins. Music drifted from the other room, Frank Sinatra "That's Life," and Walter was muttering away to himself over some scientific problem.

"Morning, Walter," Peter called.

"Oh, good morning, son!" Walter startled and turned around. His gaze found the food in Peter's hands. "Ah, bringing Olivia breakfast in bed?"

"Yeah," Peter said, ignoring the way his father was practically _beaming_ at him as he turned and went up the stairs, the boards creaking under his bare feet.

He and Olivia ate muffins and drank the orange juice, and Peter wondered how he'd managed to end up here, after the crossing of worlds, the other Olivia, everything.

They'd almost drifted off to sleep again, his back tucked against Olivia's chest and their legs tangled, her arms around him, when he heard her humming, a counterpoint to the beat of raindrops.

The tune was vaguely familiar. Not Sinatra or anything like that, something newer. He couldn't place it until she started singing softly under her breath. Her voice was hesitant, thin, but warm as honey in tea -- _In a little while I'll be there/In a little while/This hurt will hurt no more/I'll be home…_

She stopped, ducked her head away from him, silently laughing, embarrassed.

Peter swallowed. "What're you doing?"

"Well," Olivia said, her voice a little scratchy. She cleared her throat. "Walter said the other me had ruined U2 for all of you. So…" Another pause. "So I thought I'd de-ruin them for you." Then she laughed. "Unless I'm making it worse."

He closed his eyes. "Nah," Peter said, when he could speak. "I kind of like it."

* * *

They were on their way to Olivia's apartment, well after midnight, and much as it pained Peter to admit it, it was so he could drop her off and then he could go home and they could both get some sleep. Astrid had already dropped Walter off on her way home. The case they'd been on the past few days had started to make Peter feel like they were stuck on some crazy weird science hamster wheel. It involved people experiencing time loss and something about the Parietal Lobe that only Walter seemed to understand. He still had no idea why Walter had asked Astrid for six pints of kumquats.

Olivia sat quietly in the driver's seat, leaning her head against the window, breaths slow and even as the glow of streetlights slid over her. She might've been asleep except that her eyes were open, hands relaxed in her lap.

It wasn't far from the lab to Olivia's yet it seemed like the time stretched out, and then contracted, so it took far too little time, yet it seemed forever that it was the two of them in the darkened car. Olivia yawned, curling her fist to her mouth, twitching her shoulders and sitting up straighter as if ashamed to be caught napping as she glanced over at Peter.

"Hey," he said, "maybe tomorrow we should—"

The other car ran a red light, going too fast, and Peter slammed on the brakes. A rough jolt shook through them, flinging them both forward against the seatbelts as they struck the rear of the car. The car behind them hit their rear bumper, jerking them forward again.

After the bangs and twists of metal the silence was a weight.

"Olivia?" Peter said sharply.

"Yeah. I'm fine." She blinked and put her hands against the dashboard as if to steady herself. "I'm okay. Peter?" Her hand reached up, touched his shoulder.

"I think I'm good."

"Crap," said Olivia.

Outside they saw the guy who'd run the red light stumble from his Honda. He seemed dazed, but Peter couldn't see any blood on him. The rear of his car was crumpled.

Olivia unbuckled her seatbelt and reached for the door handle. Peter did the same. While Olivia went back to check on the woman in the car behind them, Peter approached the other driver, moving carefully for a whole lot of reasons. For one thing, Peter's legs were a little shaky right then. For another, he had no idea what he'd find – if the guy was drunk or on something or would be violent.

"I need your insurance number," Peter told him, choking back a bunch of other things he wanted to say.

"Oh my God. Yeah. Sure. I don't even know – I so didn't mean to –" the guy looked genuinely horrified. "I'm late for my flight and kind of tired." He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

Peter looked over at Olivia, who was listening to the woman in the other car. The woman nodded, gesturing, and told Olivia something, then started to rummage for her cell phone.

Meeting Peter's gaze, Olivia gave him the thumbs up sign.

Some ten minutes or so later, with the red-green hue of a police cruiser's lights washing over everything, Peter and Olivia leaned together against Peter's car. Olivia yawned without bothering to cover her mouth this time.

It was only a small fender-bender, no big deal. The exhaustion fell over Peter all at once, like a cloak. Funny thing, that with all the random intersections of strange forces they encountered in their job, the crazy stuff that was all in a day's work for them, actual alternate universes for crying out loud, the truly frightening things he'd seen, some dude running a red light should seem so huge. Peter wasn't sure where to put it. It could've been so much worse than a fender-bender. It could've been broken glass and even more twisted metal, Olivia on a gurney, lifted into an ambulance with blood on her face.

He'd only just gotten her back. He'd only just found her. She'd only just found him.

Peter unfolded his arms, let his hands go loose at his sides, and tried to dig in against the trajectory of his own thoughts. He didn't succeed, though, until Olivia shifted closer to him. She yawned again, then put her head down on his shoulder.

The warm skin of her hand found his cool one, a conversation of fingers until Olivia wrapped her hand around his and squeezed tight. Not in the way that she did when it sometimes seemed to him out of fear that he'd slip away, but in the way that said she was right there. She was right there, and not going anywhere.

 

~end


End file.
